Biotech, Info Tech, the Future and Space

This is how the future happens – teleteaching because of a freeway pileup

After missing multiple school days because of snow this winter, Hun School history teacher Lynn McNulty wasn’t going to let a series of chain-reaction car crashes and a miles-long traffic jam on the Pennsylvania Turnpike yesterday keep her from school another day.

“I was probably about two miles back from the big, serious pileup, but there were accidents all around,” McNulty said yesterday. “And I was like, ‘Oh this is bad.’”

After sitting in the stand-still for about an hour at the Willow Grove exit on the turnpike and live-streaming a news program on her cell phone, McNulty realized her chances of getting to school in time to teach her advanced placement European history class were not good. So she posted a message to her class through the school’s internal communications system, telling them to contact her via video chat when they got in.

She, and the school’s support team, taught the class from her car while stuck on the freeway. Without any preparation before hand, simply using what was freely available to them.

No need to ask permission to transmit over the web, no need for huge timeframes to put this together.

Simply make it happen by mashing up the tools already available. Instead of sitting with a substitute, the class learned its lesson for the day. She accomplished her mission, even when stuck on the freeway miles from the classroom.